September 29, 2014

Most people start with a USP and then deliver it, doing what they do from a market-led point of view. Some have a bunch of catch-all platitudes: “My five values are…”. But I can only do what I do – just be me. But I think I’ve worked out now what it is that I do differently.

If you look at the training market:

Some courses aren’t even practical, they’re just a load of theory without it having been through the “So What?” test. Everything in all of my courses has been through this filter. That’s my rule number 1.

Many courses aren’t fun. When did you last go on a fun Project Management course?? Mine is! Ask anyone who’s been on it!

Very few courses are philosophical. “Why bother with Time Management?”, “Does it matter if you’re a horrible boss if you get good results?”, “Can happiness be added into all management subjects?”, “What’s the relationship between Stress, Achievement, and Quality of Life?”, “Can you ever really separate work and home life?”, “Do you HAVE to enjoy your work?”, “Can a training course change someone’s life?”. People who’ve been on mine will tell you that my courses really are philosophical, but in a way that is practical and fun.

December 15, 2012

Last week I did a course in The City and my chair cost £3,000 (it was leather and it swivelled – it was quite comfortable) and they had 15 of them in the board room. How scary is that?? Still, maybe the company that made them pay their workers really well and the workers spend the money in their local economies and so it’s all OK in the end……

PPS – An exciting new DIY product that I have only recently discovered: self -amalgamating tape. Weird, and brilliant. How on earth does it work? Bodges almost anything.

PPPS – I’m continuing to discover things about google. On the google toolbar there’s a thing called Auto-Fill which is marvellous – it fills in your name and address etc automatically when you buy things on-line….

If there’s anyone out there who uses autofill, self amalgamating tape, and has seen an HHM in the last week, then I ought to award you the “Similar to Chris” prize. But you don’t want that!

PS – it’s getting cold and autumnal all of a sudden (apologies to my African and Australian readers!) and the positive thinkers just have to find something good in it. Personally I am quite looking forward to foraging for mushrooms in the forest, maybe finding a hedgehog mushroom or parasol mushroom. But don’t try this unless you REALLY know what you’re doing!

PPS – MBA news: we now have our first ever person enrolled in an MBA following doing a DMS course (Diploma in Management) with me. She is just starting at London Met, where she has to do one final year of their MBA, having got exemption from the first 2 years of their course. Sunderland have also agreed a (distance learning) MBA final year. Kingston have not agreed to it – we thought they might. Details on the forum, or email me.

PPPS – “British Airways: Britain’s favourite airline”. Well maybe, but not mine! When stranded at Newcastle and needing to change a flight at the last minute, from Newcastle-Gatwick to Newcastle-Heathrow, they quoted me £190 even though both flights had spaces on them and the original ticket was only £50. “Because it’s a last minute booking”. Thanks guys – good to know you really care!

PPPPS – greatly enjoying a book called “Watching the English” by Kate Fox – fascinating. What an odd bunch we are!

PPS – just saw Garage World from the M6 near Crewe.

PPPS – Tour de France on ITV – marvellous!

PS – listening to Blue Six “We had a thing” as I write this. Mmm, nice.

PPS – Thanks to Pete B for this hilarious and brilliant nightmare vision of the future! It’s great to have all your customer’s details at your fingertips when they call, but you can go too far: http://www.aclu.org/pizza/images/screen.swf

PPPS Being the renaissance trainer that I am, I have a sensitive side behind my rugged exterior.

I have therefore been investigating poetry, and, as a person with the Hurry Up driver, it HAS to he Haikus. Only three lines – brilliant!

The official rules of Haiku are very strict (Seventeen syllables written in three lines divided into 5-7-5., must mention the weather etc) and I would like to propose ‘The Modern Haiku’ where you can write about anything you like, and the three lines have to be short but not exactly 29 syllables, as long as they ‘scan’ in some way. It just has to “feel” right. I also think we should try to keep the rule that there has to be a twist or clever observation or “aha” moment to the Haiku.

I’ve put some of my efforts on the forum – but what I really would like is for readers to send theirs in, ideally to the forum but replying to this email would be OK too, and I’ll upload them to the forum – anonymously if you like. https://chriscroft.wordpress.com/?s=haiku

PPPPS – now listening to Audioslave – Sound of a gun. Chunky!

PS thanks to Ben for this website: Ever wanted to send a large file (e.g. a video, a Photoshop file) to a colleague but your server won’t allow it because the file is too big? Fear not. The website www.yousendit.com allows you to upload files of up to 100 MB (in the free version) to its server, which it will store until your recipient downloads it. The website even sends an email to your recipient telling them that they have a file waiting for them. (There is a professional upgrade which allows files of up to 2 GB to be uploaded but this costs $29.99 per month). It’s very handy if you work with large visual and/or audio documents.
PPPS – Open House London is this coming weekend. A chance to have a look at all sorts of interesting buildings, which are opened to the public, for free, one weekend a year. The gherkin is fully booked already, but lots of others, modern and historic, are worth seeing. There are guided walks too, which are great if you want to know how and why things got built. I went last year and I’m going again this year. Sad or interesting? – you decide!

By the way, websites don’t count, even though can be hilarious (e.g. Sewage World, Mollusc World etc) – it has to be a building, though I have in fact allowed some magazines in to my list because they exist enough to be photographed and also to be counted as sad and therefore amusing.

September 17, 2011

which is an amazing free collection of educational business videos on subjects like “How to prioritise all the biggest problems in the world”. I love it!

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PPPS – if you prefer your media to be in paper format I’d thoroughly recommend a weekly magazine called The Week, which has the best of all the papers, and compares them. It gives you a one page summary of UK news, what’s happened in Europe this week, what’s happened in the world, the best articles from the UK and European papers, sport on one page, a tabloids and gossip summary, science news on one page, a section called “boring but important”, who has died and what’s happened on the archers and desert island discs, the best letters from the papers during the week, a review of books and films just out, art exhibitions, best TV, suggested holidays, recommended websites, city news and share tips, occasional gadget corner, and even a sudoku! More info at www.theweek.co.uk or any newsagent. I love it.

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PPPS – talking of fast driving, I regularly hear about people who have been done for ridiculous speeds like 33mph in a 30, by a camera which is set at 31 and cannot use its discretion. Because of course sometimes it’s dangerous even to do 30 in a 30., and sometimes it isn’t. But I’ve never actually seen any evidence of this camera tightness – and there is another rumour that you’re allowed a 10% margin of error, so 33 would be legal (though not always safe!). Anyway, if anyone has actually been done by a camera for 33 or less I’d like to hear from them – please do email me.

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PPPPS – greatly enjoying those X-files reruns on whichever obscure satellite channel they are on. Heroes is OK, but Mulder and Scully are still the business!

…or how about some celebrity weighing scales (since both celebrities and weighing yourself are both pointless wastes of time, they sort of cancel out with this gadget) http://www.firebox.com/product/1753

Meanwhile I think I might finally succumb and get an 8GB ipod nano. They are just SO beautiful, and I have finally found a way around my pet hate with ipods, which is that if you visit someone you can’t take music off your ipod onto their PC, or from their PC onto your ipod, like you can with a Creative Zen or Archos or Sony. But now you can, by using Yamipod. Google it, download it (free), and install it on the ipod and then, wherever you go and whoever you connect to, you can see all your files as mp3s.

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PPPS – I’m gutted that the Pope has brought out a sort of rap record, (heard a bit of it on radio 4, and I rather liked it actually!) just beating ME to it. My Time Management rap is nearly ready. I’m just not sure what to do with it when it is. Suggestions please….

PS – how to avoid sending ANY Christmas cards this year (in order to help with the environment, obviously). I learned this from some friends of mine who revealed that they just send cards every other year – and if anyone notices that they didn’t get one (unlikely) and asks “What happened to my card?” you just say “Well, you SHOULD have got one!” as if to imply that it’s the post. It’s not quite a lie – because really they should indeed have had one from you!
So you still get to keep in touch with people, by sending them a card every other year, and if you think abotu it, would you notice if you didn’t get a card from just one of your firends this Christmas? Of course, if we all do it then it might get noticed.
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PPS – one more present idea: these LED candles are great. Really cosy, safe, and even rechargeable! http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-Imageo-Rechargeable-Candle-Lights/dp/B000JP4M6O/ref=pd_sim_kh_title_1 . Full list is at the forum at www.croftcentre.co.uk as usual.

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PPPS – thanks to a Matrox DualHead2Go Digital, I am now operating with two screens at my computer. It’s great! You can have one with the net and one with Word or powerpoint or whatever. If you ever need to compare two documents or have one huge spreadsheet or edit a multipage Word document then it’s great. Of course most new PCs have a graphics card that can take two screens, but if not, the n a Matrox is the thing!

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PS – in case you still need a couple of Christmas present ideas, I had an interesting experience yesterday morning with the Debenhams Personal Shopper! Mine was in Bournemouth but I expect they have them in other branches. It’s free, and they don’t humiliate you a la Trinny & S, but they do suggest all sorts of things that you wouldn’t have thought would work. Not sure if it was more of a present for me or the wife (who says I look 10 years younger). Ended up costing a bit for all the stuff we got, but I’d really recommend it for those of us who just want to wear the same thing every day, and have no concept of what matches what.

The other present is for a dog, and it’s a Kong (thanks to John Chambers for this one). It’s a hollow rubber cone and you stuff biscuits or bits of fat inside it and the dog tries to get them out, poking it’s tongue in etc. Keeps them happy for hours!

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PPS – got my dog from www.blackretrieverx.co.uk and she’s brilliant. Very laid back, very cuddly, and really rather handsome! She’s asleep next to my desk as I write this. Look at the other ones who need homes – you know you want one!!

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PPPS – currently listening to For Your Life by Led Zep, from the underrated album Presence. How may beats to a bar is it? So clever!

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PPS – humble pie corner. My ipod nano is indeed brilliant. I hadn’t expected the sound to be so much better than my Zen but it really is, even with the allegedly rubbish headphones that come with it. Although I kind of resent being controlled by World of Apple, it is leagues above any other player I’ve used. There, I’ve said it.

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PS – Pet hate for January: Unnecessary and distracting background ‘busy’ music on radio travel news.

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PPS – Has anybody else noticed that Gordon Brown has stopped dyeing his hair black and is letting the grey show – in order to look more distinguished maybe?

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PPPS – listening to Van Morrison ‘Celtic New Year’ as I write this. What a fantastic track!

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PS – Kepner Tregoe’s problem solving method says “find out when the problem happens and doesn’t happen, so you really understand it, before trying to fix it”. Very useful when tracking down printer and computer problems, and car problems. Wish I’d remembered that, and tried different phones on the ipod and the headphones on a different ipod, before cutting up and re-soldering the plug on my son’s expensive Bose headphones and then realising that the phones are fine and it’s the ipod phone socket… The headphones are now reassembled again, but an hour wasted, and of course the ipod is probably unfixable. Unless I take the back off…

PPPS – I’m going against the flow and recommending Harry Hill’s TV Burp. You may find him annoying but it’s a very clever little programme – I think! And of course This Week (late night Thursday BBC1) continues to be the only thinking person’s politics programme.

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PPPPS – Following on from background music on radio traffic news, don’t you just hate the way the TV gets louder just for the adverts – (thanks Tony Glover for that – you are so right!). I also hate the squeaking and plopping sounds in the background of cute baby nappy ads.

September 2, 2011

for those who don’t get my tips in their email in box every week or two (hey! sign up here: http://www.free-management-tips.co.uk – it’s free) or who missed some of these, here is a collection of the PSs that weren’t too time dependent. I hope it makes an amusing browse…

PPS – An exciting new DIY product that I have only recently discovered: self -amalgamating tape. Weird, and brilliant. How on earth does it work? Bodges almost anything.

PPPS – I’m continuing to discover things about google. On the google toolbar there’s a thing called Auto-Fill which is marvellous – it fills in your name and address etc automatically when you buy things on-line….

If there’s anyone out there who uses autofill, self amalgamating tape, and has seen an HHM in the last week, then I ought to award you the “Similar to Chris” prize. But you don’t want that!

PS – it’s getting cold and autumnal all of a sudden (apologies to my African and Australian readers!) and the positive thinkers just have to find something good in it. Personally I am quite looking forward to foraging for mushrooms in the forest, maybe finding a hedgehog mushroom or parasol mushroom. But don’t try this unless you REALLY know what you’re doing!

PPS – MBA news: we now have our first ever person enrolled in an MBA following doing a DMS course (Diploma in Management) with me. She is just starting at London Met, where she has to do one final year of their MBA, having got exemption from the first 2 years of their course. Sunderland have also agreed a (distance learning) MBA final year. Kingston have not agreed to it – we thought they might. Details on the forum, or email me.

PPPS – “British Airways: Britain’s favourite airline”. Well maybe, but not mine! When stranded at Newcastle and needing to change a flight at the last minute, from Newcastle-Gatwick to Newcastle-Heathrow, they quoted me £190 even though both flights had spaces on them and the original ticket was only £50. “Because it’s a last minute booking”. Thanks guys – good to know you really care!

PPPPS – greatly enjoying a book called “Watching the English” by Kate Fox – fascinating. What an odd bunch we are!

PPS – just saw Garage World from the M6 near Crewe.

PPPS – Tour de France on ITV – marvellous!

PS – listening to Blue Six “We had a thing” as I write this. Mmm, nice.

PPS – Thanks to Pete B for this hilarious and brilliant nightmare vision of the future! It’s great to have all your customer’s details at your fingertips when they call, but you can go too far: http://www.aclu.org/pizza/images/screen.swf

PPPS Being the renaissance trainer that I am, I have a sensitive side behind my rugged exterior.

I have therefore been investigating poetry, and, as a person with the Hurry Up driver, it HAS to he Haikus. Only three lines – brilliant!

The official rules of Haiku are very strict (Seventeen syllables written in three lines divided into 5-7-5., must mention the weather etc) and I would like to propose ‘The Modern Haiku’ where you can write about anything you like, and the three lines have to be short but not exactly 29 syllables, as long as they ‘scan’ in some way. It just has to “feel” right. I also think we should try to keep the rule that there has to be a twist or clever observation or “aha” moment to the Haiku.

I’ve put some of my efforts on the forum – but what I really would like is for readers to send theirs in, ideally to the forum but replying to this email would be OK too, and I’ll upload them to the forum – anonymously if you like. https://chriscroft.wordpress.com/?s=haiku

PPPPS – now listening to Audioslave – Sound of a gun. Chunky!

PS thanks to Ben for this website: Ever wanted to send a large file (e.g. a video, a Photoshop file) to a colleague but your server won’t allow it because the file is too big? Fear not. The website http://www.yousendit.com allows you to upload files of up to 100 MB (in the free version) to its server, which it will store until your recipient downloads it. The website even sends an email to your recipient telling them that they have a file waiting for them. (There is a professional upgrade which allows files of up to 2 GB to be uploaded but this costs $29.99 per month). It’s very handy if you work with large visual and/or audio documents.

PPS I want to do more reading, (currently enjoying Mark Haddon’s “A Spot of Bother”) and also I’ve been feeling a bit stressed that there are books all over my house that I want to read some time. So I have moved them all onto one shelf, and there are quite a few! But for your amusement, here are some of the ones on the pile:
(and does anyone think I shouldn’t bother with any of them??)

• The Code Book by Simon Singh
• Alan Clark’s diaries
• Sharon Osbourne: Extreme
• The Mission Song – John Le Carre
• John McEnroe: Serious
• First Among Equals – How to Manage a Group of Professionals
• The Seven Sins of Memory – How the mind forgets and remembers
• The difficulty of being a dog – Roger Grenier
• Just Six Numbers – Martin Rees
• The Dice Man – Luke Reinhart (read it ages ago, know I loved it, can’t remembr the details, must re-read)
• Michael Lewis – Liars’ Poker
• Nancy Mitford – The Pursuit of Love
• Back from the Brink (Coping with stress) – Nick Leeson
• Roger Penrose – The Emperor’s New Mind
• Predictions – 30 great minds on the future
• Potter on Gamesmanship
• Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance (another re-read)
• Impro – Keith Johnstone (my brother’s favourite book of all time, so I think I’d better read it)
• Why do buses come in threes? – the hidden maths of everyday life
• The inside story of Viz – Chris Donald

PPPS – Open House London is this coming weekend. A chance to have a look at all sorts of interesting buildings, which are opened to the public, for free, one weekend a year. The gherkin is fully booked already, but lots of others, modern and historic, are worth seeing. There are guided walks too, which are great if you want to know how and why things got built. I went last year and I’m going again this year. Sad or interesting? – you decide!

In these modern times I have the following list for you to print out and use:

5 Points
Graffiti
Tailback of greater than a mile
Someone over 40 wearing a mini-skirt (can look good, you still get the points)
Aftermath of an accident
Underage smoker
Someone throwing litter out of their window
Missing hubcap / wheel trim
Man driving while wearing hat
Pregnant woman
Dog with head out of the window

10 points
Someone jumping the lights on amber
Fluffy dice
Flat hedgehog
Boarded up shop
Man with pony tail
Couple with matching anoraks
Car with fog lights on when it’s not foggy
Car with only one headlight working
bottom of dress caught in door and flapping

20 points
Dog actually doing a poo
Fat man on small moped
Workman’s cleft
Person who looks like their dog

50 points
Couple with matching sweaters
Seeing an accident happen
Person under 10 years old smoking

Of course, you never know if the instrumentation is telling the truth, but I tried putting cruise control on at various speeds on a flat road (hey Mr Plod, it might not have been in the UK…) and this is what I found:

80 mph – 55 mpg
85 – 45
90 – 37
100 – 32
110 – 28

so the conclusion is that speeding is not only dangerous (yes yes Mr Plod!) but also quite expensive!

I’ll try it for 50 and 70 when I can find a road where I can go that slowly without annoying all the other drivers…

though early indications are that the mpg at 50 or 70 seems to be worse than at 80! Could it be that my car has an optimum speed of 80? (Which is of course illegal, Mr Plod, yes I know – what a shame!)